Saving Tropical Forests Seen As Cost Effective Option For U.S.

How much is it going to cost to save the world's tropical rainforests -- the lungs of the planet and hot spots of the earth's breathtaking biological diversity?

According to this article in the L.A. Times:

Saving the rain forest is no longer just about helping such countries as Brazil and Indonesia preserve their exotic fauna and flora. Now it is about benefiting American corporations too.

A report released today by a blue-ribbon panel estimates that if American companies invest about $9 billion by 2020 in preserving tropical forests in developing countries, they can save about $50 billion that they would have had to spend on cleaning up their own carbon dioxide emissions.

"It is one of the few major sources of emissions that can be addressed cost-effectively now," concludes the Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests, co-chaired by former Sen. Lincoln Chafee (D-R.I.) and John Podesta, head of the Center for American Progress, an energy think tank.

Of course, some of this money has to be invested in enforcement and monitoring -- making sure that the rainforests we invest in protecting are not cut down or burned for local or large-scale agriculture, ranching and timber.

We will keep you posted on the latest as the world works to integrate preservation of forest ecosystem services into the next climate change solutions treaty.
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California's Climate Forests Deal - What's the Deal?

According to the L.A. Times, California Timber Company, Sierra Pacific, is going to start marketing its forests as climate change solutions.

So what's the problem here?  Trees absorb Carbon Dioxide, and in order to conserve and protect this ecosystem service, we should pay owners of forests to maintain it.  Clearly, we're all for developing mechanisms that make conservation profitable, and reward landowners for the ecosystem services that their intact forests provide to society.

The thing is, that we need solid quantitative evidence that the buyer is getting the service that they pay for.  In the case of forest carbon offsets in temperate latitudes, the problem is that, as this High Country News article detailed:

A 2006 Livermore Labs study found benefits to tree planting in the tropics, but showed that forests in temperate zones have a net warming effect. This is because their dark canopies absorb more solar heat than the grasslands and seasonal snow cover they displace, and the effect more than cancels out any benefits from carbon sequestration.

Granted, it's only one study.  But if these findings hold, how can we make conservation profitable for large-scale temperate forest owners like Sierra Pacific, as well as smaller-scale ones?

In Cadillac Desert California, the first ecosystem service that comes to mind as absolutely needing to become the focus of ecosystem market opportunities is, of course, water.

I really look forward to following the development of ecosystem markets that reward temperate forest owners for the water purification, flood mitigation, and biodiversity-related services provided by their land...  We'll keep you posted on the latest developments...

Carbon Offsets Market Needs Regulation and Standards, Says Editor of Science Magazine

It seems that every day, we hear of new people and companies going "carbon neutral". However, the carbon offsets market is still kind of a wild west: it's not clear how much of our offset funds are really being invested in the development and implementation of carbon reducing projects, and how much are just going into slick marketing aimed at selling more offsets.

So what will it take for the carbon offsets market to live up to its promising potential for reducing carbon emissions -- by funding projects in such areas as tropical forest conservation, renewable energy development, energy conservation, and methane sequestration?

This was the question I posed to Don Kennedy, editor of the prestigious journal, Science, yesterday, at the conclusion of his lecture overviewing basic strategies for combating climate change.

The carbon offsets market needs regulation, Kennedy quickly responded at last evening's opening plenary of the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America. "There's a lot of fraud out there," and the market needs Consumer Reports type oversight with regulatory clout.

I couldn't agree more.

At a time that the consequences of not taking action to solve climate change are becoming clearer and clearer (as are the benefits of taking action, as demonstrated by this story, for example), we just can't afford for these solution-seeking dollars go to waste. We absolutely need standards and guidelines that provide buyers with rock-solid assurances that moneys from their purchases of carbon offsets are being used to reduce the amount of carbon emissions they are paying to offset.

As far as Consumer Reports-type guides that explore offset providers and the market in general, there are a few (please let me know if you know of others):

• A Consumer's Guide to Retail Carbon Offset Providers
• A nice, easy-to-read report from a Master's student at Tufts
• State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets 2007: Picking Up Steam (summary with link to full report at bottom)
• Going Carbon Neutral: How the Retail Carbon Offsets Market Can Further Global Warming Mitigation Goals (outstanding report, though more on the technical side for those interested in the issues facing the marketplace)
  

As far as certifications or standards, there is Green-e and the WWF-supported (and more stringent) Gold Standard, though both are voluntary.

While we're bound to continue to see articles like this until the problems are fixed, the good news for both offset buyers and the planet is that it finally seems that standards with regulatory clout are on the way.

I can't wait to see what they entail, and to buy my offsets from providers who meet the best of these standards!

The Importance of Getting Tree-Based Carbon Offsets Right

In my previous couple of posts, I cited recent findings that when planting trees to offset climate change, location is key. As described by the good folks over at CarbonClear:

Climate scientists Ken Caldeira and Govindasamy Bala showed that planting trees near the equator provides greater climate benefit than planting in northern countries, because the leaves of new trees planted in the north trap relatively more of the sun's heat.
"Our study shows that tropical forests are very beneficial to the climate because they take up carbon and increase cloudiness, which in turn helps cool the planet," explained Dr Bala

On the other hand, says Bala, "...in the so-called mid-latitude region where the United States is located and majority of European countries are located, the climate benefits of planting will be nearly zero...In fact, planting more trees in high latitudes could be counterproductive from a climate perspective."

This has left me thinking about how important it is that this kind of study not confuse decisionmakers and the public about the important role that forests play in absorbing CO2, and that deforestation plays in increasing levels of CO2. For example, deforestation accounts for 20% of annual human-caused carbon emissions! Protecting forests is therefore a key component of any strategy to reduce carbon emissions (though issuance of carbon credits for protecting forests or planting trees should be carefully calculated based on such ecological factors as a local forest's CO2 uptake, and funds should be used to protect that forest for at least the amount of time required to insure that CO2 uptake).
We also need to remember that protecting forests in mid and northern latitudes provides many valuable ecosystem services in addition to carbon storage, for which people are working on ways to compensate landowners. Right now, owners of forested lands have few options for generating income from trees on their lands other than by cutting them down. Society needs to provide them with more ways to feed their families from income generated by their forests.

If a landowner's, municipality's, or even country's forests are providing valuable ecosystem services (in addition to timber, carbon storage, wildlife habitat, and shade) such as:

• mitigation of floods by trees, which uptake rain water that would otherwise flow into flooding streams and rivers
  
• filtration of drinking water
• soil stabilization that protects homes and roads from landslides and mudslides
  
• providing important habitat for pollinators of our crops (studies have shown the yields of some crops are greater when grown near intact forests, due to greater presence of pollinators)
  
• precipitation (forests help generate it - especially tropical forests, but also temperate ones)
• provision of natural medicines (key treatments for ailments from cancer to a common headache come from forests!)
  
• provision of fishing jobs by maintaining healthy fish and spawning habitat
  

then we need to devise new and innovative ways to provide landowners with payments for these ecosystem services to compensate them for keeping their forests intact.

Carbon offsets are one means of generating funds to pay landowners to keep their forests intact to protect and maintain ecosystem services. In my opionion, they remain an important, even if imperfect, tool, in spite of this new study (which should certainly be used to guide improvements to forest-based carbon offset schemes in temperate and northern latitudes).

However, carbon offsets should also be just the beginning of compensating landowners for the valuable ecosystem services that their forests provide to society.

More on Debate of the Regional-Dependent Benefits of Planting Trees to Counter Global Warming

Another article related to the findings reported in my last post about the regional-dependent nature of the effectiveness of planting trees to offset carbon emissions and fight global warming.

Again, my take is that the concept of carbon offsets is good - an important climate "wedge" or piece of the carbon emissions reduction pie. We just need go to through this kind of debate and scientific oversight to make sure that people and businesses are really getting what they are paying for.

Is PG & E's Carbon Offsetting Program Supported by Science?

As I update news tonight, I find the following two stories on carbon offsetting:

• Location of Trees Planted to Offset Carbon Emissions Vital to Combat Climate Change
• California Utility Sells Carbon Offsets

The first one says that for planting trees to really have an impact in reducing global warming, you need to plant them in the tropics. Planting trees in the U.S., it claims, does little in the way of climate.

The second one says PG & E is selling its customers carbon offsets, and using revenues to plant trees in California.

Hmmmm....

Granted, the first article cites mechanisms other than just carbon sequestration by which planting trees helps fight global warming. And I'm not so sure the idea that planting trees in temperate regions doesn't affect the climate will hold up, scientifically (frankly, I'd need to read the whole scientific article to get a better sense of how solid their findings are).

But still, the finding is another piece of evidence that we have a ways to go before we get this whole carbon offsetting business - an important piece of the climate pie if done right - nailed down for consumers, businesses, and the planet.